5481

Agreed. I think Tom is right that subsequent patches and expansions did make GalCiv2 a much better game than at launch, but Elemental is so fundamentally broken in its core concepts that I find it hard to be as optimistic.

As I said above, magic, which should be an exciting part of the game is frankly dull and almost a detriment to winning. It’s going to take a lot more than spicing up the research tree or a straight ramp up of magical power to fix this game.

5482

Seems to me they could use some support staff as well. 9 days since I sent my last message and no response. Guess I’ll call them for the futile attempt to get a refund.

As others have read their policy I’d guess I’m technically out of luck, but I really don’t understand the logic. Give refunds to people that bought when it released but not those that bought early to help you out, beta-tested and spread the word to others about what an interesting game seemed to be taking shape? Meh.

5483

i wouldn’t say its broken. you have working 4x gameplay and since the last patch I haven’t had any crashes. yeah the game definitely could use some redesign in some areas (magic and tactical imo)… but its not broken (as in not playable).

5484

If Stardock can make the systems they have work together, and balance them out- they’ll have a classic game on their hands. There’s a lot of potential to go with the flaws.

5485

My story (spoiler: no problems):
Ordered: Sep 7
Sent: Sep 10 (from Loveland, OH)
Received: Sep 15 (@ Northern Finland, which adds one day)
Shipper: USPS First-Class Mail International

So, one Elemental: War of Magic Limited Edition box from web order to Northern Europe in a week. Some Stardock customers (first time for me) seem to be more equal than others. Sorry.

5486

I disagree, GalCiv 2 had a ton of problems, starting by a extremely boring research tree (Elemental is way better on that for example, even if needs more variety and decisions.) I have completed two campaigns of Elemental and there is space and a good base for improvement, Tom is right (IMO of course). The GalCiv II example from Tom’s feature is exactly why I have faith on the studio, GalCiv2 went from an amusing entertainemnt to one of my favourite 4Xs, but it took years and expansions to arrive there.

In other news, I just got my LE, the box is pretty cool (a bit too big) and loved the map (even if it´s a bit worthless as I have not played the campaign), my only disappointment is that the dragon figurine is smaller than I thought.

5487

yeah, I got two for some reason.

5488

We’re #3! We’re #3!

5489

Enh, still barely half of the Dominions thread. Hell, who needs Elemental at all when Dominions is clearly the Game To End All Fantasy Strategy Games?

5490

I pre-ordered some beta’s back and live in England. :(

Ironically I believe I discovered DOM3 as a result of reading one of the Elemental anticipation threads (probably this one actually), so if nothing else I have Stardock to thank for that. I think DOM3 is the closest thing we have to a true successor to MOM.

5491

The Dominions games (like DWARF FORTRESS) also demonstrate how much suffering gamers are willing to endure to get to a game design that works.

5492

Do not underestimate the power of the Drama Side.

5493

The Dominions 3 thread is twice as old. This one’s got time to catch up.

5494

If the game does eventually turn into a classic, it would stand a chance.

5495

I was in the Elemental beta since the beginning and never gave all that much feedback, but the little I did give was for them to play the hell out of Dominions 3, and when they understand the beauty of the mechanics behind it, bring as much of it as possible to Elemental. I guess we see how that turned out. :P

I’m really glad to see this thread has calmed down a bit and is focused back on game mechanics and how Elemental can be made better though. I fully agree with Tom that it will eventually be a classic game… eventually…

5496

The difference between people who like GalCiv2 after patches and expansions and those that don’t is that the people who like it think the tech tree was a big problem. Those that don’t like it are more likely to think the economy or other failures of design were the big problem, and the boring tech tree was minor in comparison. The tech tree was fixed, but the economy never was.

I’m one of the people who don’t like GalCiv2, and we’re in the minority. GalCiv2’s relative popularity is another sign of how much personality counts: if you can patch in some personality, the number of people who now enjoy your game is way higher than the number of people who still think it’s too broken to be fun.

I think the big problems Stardock will have to overcome with Elemental all revolve around the 3D engine. First, they need to solve the technical issues. Second, they need to get more personality across with diversity in models, animations, visual effects, and so forth. After that it’s just a matter of doing what they did with GalCiv2: adding more diversity in the spells and units and so forth, whether that’s done through different tech trees for different factions, or whatever. This is relatively easy to do, as Brad loves to point out, especially if you don’t worry too much about things like balance and a comprehensive game design. And really, you don’t have to worry too much about those things.

There are a few people out there who really care about the details of mechanics and design and so forth, and more who can appreciate it, but everyone cares about personality. From a business perspective, focusing on game design first is a losing proposition. My guess is that over the next few years Elemental will greatly improve for a lot of people, but probably not much for those who didn’t like GalCiv2. Forget about Brad not being a great game designer: he doesn’t actually have an incentive to care about it very much. Game design is gravy, and he’s in the potato business.

As for Dominions, well, there’s your reason why Stardock went 3D, despite all the problems it caused them. Dominions has great gameplay mechanics and even more personality, but funky looking sprites and a clunky looking interface mean the vast majority of gamers will never look at it long enough to appreciate how good it is. (Never mind the fact that the interface is actually clunky, the learning curve is nearly vertical, and it has plenty of its own bugs and badly explained mechanics; those things are minor by comparison.) Master of Orion 2 has way more personality than GalCiv2 ever did, but it doesn’t matter because it’s an old game with old graphics. The same is true of Master of Magic as compared with Elemental, and I suspect that it will remain true even as Elemental improves.

There are a few gamers who will put up with a lot of pain (usually in the graphics and interface department, not coincidentally) to get good game design, but the key word there for any business is “few.”

5497

What a damn racket. Whoever pre-ordered and got an actual refund you must have the magic touch. Just got off the phone and no apologies or anything, just a flat statement that all I could get was store credit. I don’t believe this nonsense that they’re not capable of putting money on a credit card after 90 days whatsoever.

As for those who persist in claiming that with enough patches this will turn into a ‘classic’, I’d love to know your reasoning. Seems pretty damn naive to trust the same team that turned out 1.0 to understand all that they did wrong and at the same time come up with inspired new ways of making a game that’s nothing like the Elemental of today. Especially considering the entire plan seems to be having polls on what needs fixing first and listening to those on the forums which is what they were supposedly doing all along before. How about getting a game designer in there and analyzing all the broken mechanics that need gutting?

5498

I never could stand Dominions 3 interface. I remember having to do like 400 clicks to see and compare different units i could train, and thinking: “wth, they should have used a table! a fucking table, with rows and columns! all this info could be in a single screen, but they weren’t bright enough to have the idea of using a table!!”.

GalCiv 2, even with problems like races with little personality, boring tech tree more functional than fun, and funky wonky economy, it was a 4X solid enough to have lots of fun, because you always were occupied with lots of things. Exploration, normal war, “culture wars”, trade, colonization, meaningful unit design, different types of starbases, resources to exploit, research to choose, planets to manage, economy to tweak carefully, population to please, random events that could change the game, morale system tied to mini-events, espionage, unn votes, full featured diplomacy, etc. And a good ai to compete against.

Tom mentions how the second expansion finally tweaked the game, but imo the different tech trees weren’t that interesting. It was only a good point for game veterans who played dozens of times and needed that to have variety again. For me it was the first expansion, Dark Avatar, the thing who made the game really good, with better planet colonization, asteroids to exploit, better espionage, super abilities for each race which served to flesh them out, and super random events.

5499

My problem with the expansions fixing the game (or not, depending on who you ask) is that I’m still not willing to pay an extra $40 to maybe turn a game I didn’t like into one that I do. I buy expansions for games that I like.

5500

Ah, I see, so for us normal chaps there is hope because we are content with some fancy graphics and options to toy, but for the elite that can see the inner and ethereal qualities and failures of the game, Elemental is beyond hope. Ok, I’m good with that.

I think I am in the fortunate side, because I can keep enjoying MoM after all these years, then going back to AC and then start a campaign of GalCiv II, all that without getting lost analysing the inner design of each game and checking if everything is balanced, well defined and well executed. I enjoy it or not, is that simple.

By the way, it’s not that I’m super interested in showing you I have intellect to discern the bigger problems with Elemental, but there is other thread when we actually talk about the game, and I participated showing problems with AI and the stacking of units, so I guess that even normal chaps as us can identify that “adding stuff” alone won’t be enough for this one.

In any case, my apologies for making someone as illustrated as you to waste your magnificent analysis capacity. You can save the effort for next time, I’m too dumb to understand such high concepts.